Virtual Assets & Financial Crime - DeFi, NFTs, Stablecoins & the Evolving Enforcement Landscape

Introduction

Cryptoassets and other virtual assets now arise routinely across the spectrum of financial crime, from fraud and money laundering to confiscation and asset recovery proceedings. What was once perceived as a niche or highly technical area has rapidly become a mainstream feature of criminal practice. Investigators, regulators, and prosecutors are increasingly confident in dealing with these assets, and statutory frameworks have begun to evolve to address their seizure, tracing, and recovery.

Despite this, many practitioners remain uncertain about the practical implications of decentralised finance (DeFi), peer-to-peer transactions, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), unhosted wallets, and stablecoins when they arise in live cases. The real difficulties are rarely technological in nature. Instead, they concern familiar criminal law issues: attribution, control, evidential sufficiency, valuation, jurisdiction, and enforcement.

This webinar is designed to provide a clear, practical, and legally focused understanding of how virtual assets are now encountered in financial crime matters and how the courts and investigators approach them in practice. It will examine the ways in which such assets are used in offending and laundering, the challenges they create for investigation and prosecution, and the strategic issues they raise for practitioners advising clients or conducting litigation.

Drawing on current enforcement trends and developing regulatory frameworks, the webinar will demystify the technology and focus on what actually matters in practice. You will leave better equipped to identify risk areas, engage effectively with investigators and experts, and avoid common strategic and evidential pitfalls in cases involving virtual assets.

What You Will Learn

This webinar will cover the following:

• How and why virtual assets now feature routinely in fraud and financial crime investigations
• The legal and practical status of cryptoassets as property within the criminal justice system
• Common offending and laundering typologies involving cryptoassets
• How decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols are used in financial crime and why they present investigative challenges
• Peer-to-peer transfers and unhosted wallets: attribution, control, and evidential difficulties
• The role of stablecoins in cross-border movement of value and concealment of proceeds
• NFTs and their emerging use in fraud, market manipulation, and value transfer
• Blockchain tracing and the current reality of investigative capability
• Practical issues in restraint, seizure, and confiscation involving virtual assets
• Valuation, volatility, and realisable property considerations in crypto-related cases
• Jurisdictional and enforcement challenges, including cross-border recovery
• Strategic pitfalls and common misconceptions affecting practitioners dealing with crypto-related financial crime
• Emerging regulatory and enforcement developments likely to shape future cases

This pre-recorded webinar will be available to view from Thursday 17th September 2026

Alternatively, you can gain access to this webinar and 2,300+ others via the MBL Webinar Subscription. Please email webinarsubscription@mblseminars.com for more details.